The present invention relates to a ski boot, particularly of the rear-entry type, therefore composed of a shell with which a front quarter and a rear quarter are associated.
Said boot furthermore comprises inside its shell one or more pressers which are adapted, upon activation thereof, to optimally secure the foot inside said shell.
In said known kind of boot, the problem of achieving the optimum adjustment and securing of the quarters and of the foot inside the shell is currently strongly felt.
Many devices are therefore known which individually achieve the above mentioned purpose, but high costs and an overloading of the boot structure are observed indeed because this purpose is achieved by means of physically separate devices which are therefore differently located at the boot.
As a partial solution to this disadvantage, French patent application, No. 2536965 filed on Dec. 2, 1982, discloses a securing and locking device for rear-entry ski boots, constituted by a single cable which affects the foot instep region, embraces the quarters and can be locked by means of an adapted lever.
Though this device allows to simultaneously close the quarters and secure the foot inside the boot, the two functions are interdependent, and it is therefore impossible to vary the degree of securing of the quarters with respect to that of the foot instep.
Such a need is instead strongly felt in order to achieve the optimum wear of the boot.
French patent No. 2572258 filed on Oct. 30, 1984, also discloses a ski boot comprising a vertical lever which is pivoted to the rear quarter and comprises means for adjusting the closure of the quarters and the securing of the foot comprising epicycloidal gears adapted to differently wind separate cables which affect the quarters and a presser arranged inside the shell.
Even this solution, however, entails the simultaneous activation of the two functions by rotating said lever, and no adjustment is possible, either to close the quarters or to secure the foot, when the lever is activated.
Said boot therefore allows a different winding of the cables only when the vertical lever is opened, and no mutually independent activations, for example of the closure of the quarters or of the securing of the foot, are possible.
Still as a partial solution to these disadvantages, this same Assignee filed on Sep. 14, 1987 an application, No. 07/096,193 disclosing a multiple-function actuation device which comprises means adapted to selectively engage a knob and the ends of a first shaft and of a second shaft, said shafts being mutually free and coaxial.
Each of said shafts furthermore had, at its other end, a gear coupled by means of adapted kinematic systems respectively to a winding pulley for a cable and with a winder for a band or the like.
The pulley and the winder were furthermore arranged along mutually perpendicular axes and co-operated with means adapted to allow the removable locking of their rotation in the unwinding direction of the cable and of the band.
Though this device allows to independently activate the two functions, it is very complicated from a structural and constructive point of view and entails hardly negligible dimensions and high overall costs.
The fact is furthermore stressed that said device does not memorize a selected securing degree for one of the functions.